Fugue
by Nellynee
Summary: Waking up in the hospital with no idea how you got there was one thing, waking up years latter in a strange body was quite another... Steven Boxleitner fic.


Consciousness came back to him slowly, one sense at a time. He realized he could hear something, muffled voices and incessant noises that surpassed his ears and smacked straight into the center of his brain. When he was able to crack his eyes open, light blinded him, and beyond the slits everything was a blurred mass of moving darkness and harsh white that hurt his eyes. For the longest time, he saw and heard everything from through a fog, as if he was cut off from the rest of the world by a thick wall of glass.

Time passed, the noises sharpened and his vision cleared. At one point he could smell it, the disinfected smell of cleaners and chemicals and science, all layered over something sickly sweet that stuck in his nose. He was lying down, and the sheets under his sensitive, ungloved fingers were crisp and papery and hard with too much starch.

His mind came back to him, and the first time he woke, it was night. It was dark, but even then the white walls reflected so much of the moonlight it was almost glaring. His head hurt horribly, a constant headache pounding at the center with his heart, and the left side of his head felt swollen and bruised and soft when pressed at the bandages there. He fingered under a few layers, and the tips of his fingers came back wet with blood. The smell of sickness and IV in his arm and the ungodly uncomfortable catheter he could kind of feel and the blood on his bandages all connected for just a second in his mind, and falling back into a haze of pain meds, all he could think was 'oh, I'm in a hospital…'

When he woke again, Wordgirl was there. Feelings he didn't understand rushed thorough him. He was suddenly wary of her, annoyed by her presence, fingers itching to pull a trigger in a reflex he never had. He pushed these felling aside, writing them off to a bad, medicine induced dream he could barely remember. Something about cheese and ray guns and weeks sitting alone behind bars, slowly manipulating his way out, either through stupid people or weak surroundings. He let himself feel the more familiar feelings instead, amused and affectionate, anticipation at some real stimulation for his brain for once.

She wasn't looking at him; rather, she was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor, twiddling her thumbs around a cup of ice chips. Captain HuggyFace dozed quietly in the uncomfortable, hard backed chair in the corner. He wasn't sure how long he'd been sleeping, but he been out for so long that his first attempt at her name came out more of a loud croak in disuse than any attempt at words, and realized how thirsty he was. He tried again, and this time his dried, cracked throat forced out a cough. She jumped, startled, and it took him only a second of desperate gesturing to his throat for her to hold him up with one hand, and tilt the cup of half melted ice chips she'd been crunching on into his mouth with the other.

He moaned appreciatively as the cold liquid soothed his throat, and plopped back onto the pillows, already tired with the effort it took to just stay awake. He lay there, panting lightly under his breath, and it took him quite a few minutes to regain his strength. He wasn't sure how long he laid there, exhaustion and pain washing over him in waves, but finally he was able to open his eyes again and see the damage.

His dominant hand was completely encased in plaster, save for the last three of his fingers, which all pulsed with pain and bled through tightly wrapped gauze. He mourned the loss, because it was with that hand that he had written all his books, poured every chemical, twisted every wire, laid out every plan. That hand was his means of providing for himself. More important than walking, he needed that hand. With any luck, it wasn't completely destroyed. Maybe he'd have to build himself another. That would be amusing, and would probably earn him a pretty penny too in patents.

His left leg had another cast on his calf, but like his hand, he'd have to wait until latter to find the true extent of damage. His chest throbbed under thick bandages, but the pain told him it was mostly superficial wounds on his skin, with only a light throb under his lower ribs, no more significant than a bruised muscle most likely. Mostly flesh wounds littered him, bruises and scrapes that colored his pale skin under bandages and sheets.

His head was what worried him the most. He was already having trouble focusing, would probably loose consciousness soon. He was too afraid to rummage through his memory. It would be one thing to forget what had happened (What _had_ happened, by the by?) it would be an entirely different manner to look back and have forgotten _everything_, to loose that intelligence that made him, him. Yes, new memories could be made, but he was too tired to face the possibility that he could be _ordinary_, that he could one day reach the point where he had to stop leaning because he could no longer understand things that he once took for granted.

At least somewhat pacified with his current situation (Sweet peas and carrots, what did they have him on? Whatever pain killers they were pumping into him were simply magical, he _must_ get more latter.) He managed to get enough focus together to open his eyes once more and fixate on Wordgirl. She was back in her previous position, twiddling her thumbs around ice chips, except this time here eyes were fixated on him with an almost frightening intensity.

Well good, at least she was here. If there was one person he could count on to give the cold hard facts about a situation, it was Wordgirl.

She was too tense, too _in_tense. He tried to give her that small, indulgent smile he always gave her whenever she puzzled her way through her problems in his lab, the same one that often got an adorable, shy smile in turn.

"Would you mind telling me Wordgirl, what in the world happened to me?"

He got no smile in turn. Rather, her stare only grew colder.

"Don't try to play innocent with me Dr. Two Brains. That was low even for you. Stealing cheese is one thing, but many people were hurt much worse than you in that explosion..."

…What?

"…You should count yourself lucky that you aren't restrained for now. They didn't want a lawsuit if your hand rotted off..."

Now hold on a sec-

"…But your completely surrounded, so don't even try to escape. Actually, you should count yourself fortunate that you moved your little ray gun out of city limits, or even the evil lawyers in the villain's guild couldn't save you."

What did she mean by-? Okay none of this entire situation was making sense.

She looked angry, furious even, carrying an odd air of expectancy, as if her whole crazy rant deserved some kind of sensible response. Her legs were spread slightly where she stood heels planted to the ground, her hands held in what appeared to be a relaxed position, but were taunt at her sides. Basic defensive stance #74 from his novel. It left the whole body ready for a blow, but was inconspicuous if done correctly, used in diplomatic situations, though Wordgirl's take on it was clearly aggressive. She'd given Huggy a firm pinch on his shoulder when she had started to wake him, and the monkey held the same disappointed scowl, the same expectant air.

It was like they were waiting for him to … retaliate.

What in the world was going on? Who the heck was Dr. Two Brains? What was up with that name? It's not like a person could actually have two brains…. Why would he want to steal cheese? Why would he want to steal _anything_? What did those damn evil lawyers with the villain's guild that kept breaking real villains out of jail have to do with any of this?

Why was Wordgirl looking at him like that?

He was so tired, but he needed to know what had happened in that apparent explosion (that he caused?) Needed to know what in the world was going on around him.

He wanted to laugh, because this was so… so ridiculous. Oh! Oh he got it!

"Good one Word girl. You- You almost had me going there." He smiled wide and waged his finger at her. What was up with his voice? It was all… squeaky, like it was caught in his throat. He cleared it and forced his voice from his aching chest, satisfied with the results when he spoke again. "For just a moment I had actually thought that you- You know that's not very nice, playing tricks on your elders, especially one who's in the hospital. Speaking of which, I really would like to know what I am doing here." He gave her an imploring look. Enough funny business. He was tired, he was in pain, and he just wanted to know what had happened. He'd laugh latter at her joke when his chest stopped hurting. He had to admit, it was pretty funny.

Imagine. Him, a villain.

Rather than laugh at her little trick, she frowned deeper, and wagged her finger back at him.

"Don't play innocent with me Dr. Two Brains. You know full well what you did was terrible, and feigning ignorance won't work in court this time. This time your going to jail for a long, long-"

"Really Wordgirl I'd love to play along, really, but I'm in pain. You won't mince words with me, just tell me what happened. By the way, where did the whole "Dr. Two Brains" come from? Is that supposed to be some play on my intelligence or what?" He knew he probably looked terrible but he tried to reassure her with another crooked smile that he wasn't in _too_ much pain (even if he was).

She got this weird look on her face, like she was confused and disbelieving all at once. Captain Huggyface was looking back and forth between them, and giving him one last suspicious look at him, chirped something at Wordgirl.

She nodded, and with a dream like quality to her voice, told him to go ahead and tell the doctors that he was awake.

A few moments after the monkey's departure, she was still staring at him with that odd look, as if she were trying to pry into his mind with her eyes.

Worried at her silence, he reached over, grasped her shoulder, and shook her gently. "Wordgirl, what's wrong?" Maybe… maybe that wasn't right…. "What's going on?"

Her face pinched.

"Professor Boxleitner?"

And suddenly everything about her off behavior fit into place. Although that raised so many more questions than answered.

She truly didn't know it was him.

How is that possible?

He grasped her chin in his good hand, tried to comprehend the broken disbelief on her face, tried to find some recognition in her eyes.

"Of course it is Wordgirl, who did you think I was? Why didn't you recognize me?"

She blinked out of her daze, and as if panicked, she reached into one of the many pockets of her cape, pulled out a pocket mirror, handed it to him.

What… what had happened to him?

The hair that wasn't tucked under the bandage around his head was long, shaggy, and most importantly _white_, no longer the dark chocolaty brown he expected. His eyes, oh god his eyes! Instead of the vibrant sky blue he'd seen every day in the mirror since birth, blood red stared back at him, the whites of them tainted liberally with pale pink. And… were those _whiskers_?

"No one was really sure what happened to you, exactly. After looking through your labs, we found what was left of that mind reader, the mouse's body. We all figured that something had gone wrong..." She reached up, touched the thick padding around his head where he could feel the veins pulse with his heartbeat. "We all assumed that the vicious mouse brain was controlling you. You broke out, every once in a while…don't you remember?"

He didn't… or maybe he did, he wasn't sure.

"It was you, but it wasn't. You were evil, of that there's no doubt, you were… are an official villain in the guild. Number one on the "Wordgirl's most wanted" list." She said this with a little lost laugh under her breath. "Your thing was stealing cheese, to fit with the whole mouse thing. That and ray guns, you sure love your ray guns." That he did. "The mouse brain… sometimes I'd get through you, and suddenly, it'd be like flicking a switch. It was like you _needed_ all that cheese you stole."

She had treated him like a villain, because he _had_ been a villain?

The look on her face was absolutely mystified.

"No one ever thought for a second that the injury to the mouse brain could have caused this…"

The hand that had been brushing his bandages was shaking as it slid down his cheek. She leaned in from where she was sitting on his bed. The other hand reached up to cup his face. There was hope in her eyes, as if she could see past his own unfamiliar features to who he was inside.

This close, within the range of his poor vision, he could see how much she had truly changed. Her uniform was the same, but she was taller, just a bit. Beyond the small size, she had obviously grown. Her legs were long for her body and slim, her hips thick and curvy.

Under the helmet, her hair had nearly doubled in length than when he had last seen, still cut straight against the brown, though thick rings escaped the confines of her helmet and rested femininely on her cheeks. The rest of her hair smoothed down her back, the round curls at the bottom resting within the small of it. It poured over her shoulders the more she leaned forward, coming to rest the slim swell of her breasts.

Even her face had changed. The build of it was still round, but the years and hero work had slimmed the baby fat into nothingness. Here eyes seemed wide and luminous, intense, framed with long, dark, inky lashes. Her lips were full, plush, even with the obvious lack of lipstick or gloss.

How long had it been? How much time had he lost to his own mind? How many years of his life were simply gone? How long had it taken for the adorable little child he'd been proud to call "friend" to become the stunning woman before him.

How much of life had simply… passed him by?

Suddenly, the thought of forgetting his life bothered him more than loosing his genius to this injury. As time passed, through the pain and the meds, he could remember the incident she mentioned as clear as day, the smell of his pastrami sandwich, the weight of the helmet on his head, the gleam in the mouse's eyes. The sudden intense pain reaching its claws into his brain, scraping out everything he was and everything he knew.

But then it just stopped. He was there, and then he was here. Wordgirl was here, sitting on his bed, but she was totally changed.

After all that time, he was the same, but she was not. Losing his time was fine, he could make more memories. But how much of her life had he just skipped, just like that?

His friendship to Wordgirl had been everything to him. It had been this tenuous, infant connection to another advanced mind that had exhilarated him. He'd grasped onto it, to that adorable girl who'd made his mind race, who'd pull him out of the sleepless lull of his projects, who'd needed him as a doctor, a confidant, a friend. He'd been honored that such an esteemed hero had needed him in some sense, had used his research to better herself. She'd even told him once that she held him in a higher esteem, recognized and acknowledged his intellect that one some levels on par with her own, on others, far above.

As a child, her acknowledgements had thrilled him, her negligence had ached somewhere in his chest. When she laughed, he was compelled to do so as well, and when she cried he held her. They'd shared dreams and memories and stories over shared meals. As a child, she'd been his friend.

But she'd lived what could possible a lifetime of experiences. Events and choices he'd possibly never know molded her, changing her from the person she was then to the person she is now.

She was no longer that child.

He had no idea how much, but he was a man out of his time, out of his place.

Using his good hand, he mirrored the gesture, cupped her cheek, searched her face for some hint of the little girl he'd known, some tenuous strand of their connection, something to build upon, to keep from being left behind.

She smiled at him, a small, shaky flash of a dimple.

Easing her hands from his face, he draped himself over her shoulder and overwhelmed, he cried.


End file.
